On Thursday night he told the ABC’s Lateline program that Telstra’s hybrid fibre-coaxial network, currently used to deliver pay TV and internet services, could deliver 100 megabit per second speeds to homes sooner than Labor’s NBN.

“Any alternative policy for a national broadband network would be doomed to fail if the continued use of the Telstra pay TV cable network ... is a key element," CCC chairman Matt Healy said. “[Mr Turnbull’s] comments ignore the reality that such a proposal would mean that for 30 per cent of the population there would be no effective competitive broadband market."

But Mr Turnbull said the Coalition would eventually replace Telstra’s Pay TV network.

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“The competitive carriers are keen for the Telstra HFC to be switched off and replaced by a government owned wholesale carrier [but] they have never shown any concern about how many billions of taxpayers’ dollars are spent to achieve this," he said.

“Their only objective is to eliminate Telstra as a wireline infrastructure operator so that they can compete on what they believe will be a level playing field.

“The consequence of the Government’s NBN policy, egged on by the competitive carriers, is that there will be one government owned monopoly broadband wireline provider ... which will be able to charge higher and higher prices as it seeks to get a return on its overcapitalised investment."